Falling Away

2 Thessalonians 2:1-15

New King James Version (NKJV)

The Great Apostasy

2 Now, brethren, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to Him, we ask you, ² not to be soon shaken in mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ^[a] had come. ³ Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin^[b] is revealed, the son of perdition, ⁴ who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God^[c] in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.

⁵ Do you not remember that when I was still with you I told you these things? ⁶ And now you know what is restraining, that he may be revealed in his own time. ⁷ For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only He^[d] who now restrains will do so until He^[e] is taken out of the way. ⁸ And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. ⁹ The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, ¹⁰ and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. ¹¹ And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, ¹² that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Stand Fast

¹³ But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth,¹⁴ to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.¹⁵ Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or our epistle.

Many believers would agree that we are currently seeing a “great falling away” in the churches. People are leaving because they have fallen back in to sins, they are leaving because of they don’t like what the pastor has said, they are leaving because they were offended by something another church member has said and the list continues…

The saddest thing about the falling away is that they because easy targets for further attack by the enemy. There is no bigger door for demonic activity than of one that was open by offense and backsliding.

We all have to be prepared for offenses that may come, we can not take things personally and whenever anyone says something to you or about you realize that it’s a spirit operating in through them and it’s not the person that is to blame. However you may have to separate from that person or group of people if they continue to do you wrong or do others wrong.

It is also easy to fall into the role of the offender; it’s easy to become an offender-offenders are the ones who have been offended and allowed their flesh to act out and cause an offense to another. We have to train ourselves to be more sensitive to the spirit and push back the flesh.

Do not be discouraged when you see the people you know leave the church, do not be drawn by them. Be led of the Spirit and not of your friends and family, everyone has to work out their own soul salvation in the end, just because you followed someone who is saved means that you’ll be okay no matter where you go. The people who remain in the church may think that those who left just left to be at another church, this is not true for those who chose to leave and wasn’t led to leave, they are opening up an opportunity for them to go through a testing period.